The three Romans sucked in their breath through their teeth as the Capricorn emblem of a legion and five cohort standards topped by a raised hand, palm out, were revealed. The curtains themselves were made of the flags that hung from the crossbar of a century’s standard, each one representing eighty long-dead men.
‘Arminius shared out the trophies in secret, drawing lots for them so that there would be no jealousies between the tribes; each King swore never to reveal what he had received to the others. I received the silver Capricorn legion emblem of the Nineteenth and five cohort standards plus all those century flags. As to the rest, only Arminius knew, and he’s dead.’
‘But his son is still alive.’
Adgandestrius frowned. ‘Yes, he is and I suppose it’s possible that he knows. Is that what you planned to do, ask Thumelicus?’
‘I thought that if we went to the Teutoburg Forest we could find a way of sending him a message; I have something of his father’s that would interest him.’ Vespasian took Arminius’ knife from his belt and gave it to the King.
Adgandestrius drew it from its scabbard and examined the blade, looking closely at the runic engraving and then handed it back. ‘Yes, that would be of great interest to him and may be enough to persuade him to meet with you. I know where he is and will send a message to him that you will be at Kalkriese Hill in the Teutoburg Forest at the next full moon in five days’ time. If he so wishes he can meet you there.’ With some difficulty he pulled himself up from his chair and walked over to the standards; he pulled out the Nineteenth’s Capricorn from its holder. ‘I will give you an escort of my men to see you there safely and when you leave here you will go with the Nineteenth’s emblem as my gift.’
The look of astonishment on the Romans’ faces as he handed the emblem to Sabinus caused the old King to chuckle. ‘You wonder why I help you? It is for the same reason that I will beg Thumelicus to help you; not just for his father’s knife but for a far greater prize: if the fool in Rome gets his Eagle back and also the Nineteenth’s emblem then it will surely secure his position with the army so he can have his invasion and victory in Britannia. However, the legions will be drawn from the garrisons on the Rhenus and Danubius; at least four legions plus their auxiliaries less to face us. The Celtic tribes of Britannia’s loss will be our gain. If Rome goes north to that island then it will not have the power to threaten us again. I’ll help you, as, I pray, will Thumelicus, because in doing so we will guarantee that Germania will remain free, for generations; perhaps even forever.’
CHAPTER X
‘This is it!’ Magnus exclaimed as the column, led by twenty of Adgandestrius’ warriors, slowed owing to the path narrowing, hemmed in by a marsh on the north side and a hill on the south. ‘I remember this, it’s where Arminius trapped the remnants of our lads after four days of running battles; there were only seven or eight thousand or so left out of almost twenty-five thousand. Varus had been driving them steadily northwest through the pissing rain trying to outrun the Germans but they managed to get ahead of them by taking a short cut across the hills and were waiting in the trees above an area of open ground. Our lads never saw them until five thousand of the hairy bastards started flinging javelins at them. Fifty thousand missiles in under a hundred heartbeats, can you imagine it?’
Vespasian could; he shuddered at the thought. ‘That would bring a column to a halt.’
‘It did. They couldn’t go into the marsh because it had been raining constantly for days, those who tried just sank; they couldn’t go forward or back because another five thousand had blocked off their retreat and the path ahead had been dug up and obstacles placed over it.’
‘So they had no choice but to fight?’
‘No. Soon we’ll see a long earth wall that they threw up as a last defence; it goes on for about a quarter of a mile. The survivors managed to hold the savages off for a while but then the rest of the tribes who had been watching decided to join in. Varus saw the futility of the situation and did the decent thing and after that most of our lads were dead within the hour. Only a few escaped and some of them joined us as guides when we went back; I got to know a couple of them quite well.’
‘What happened at the beginning?’ Sabinus asked.
‘Well, Varus was taking his men back from the summer camp on the Visurgis River to winter quarters on the Rhenus; three legions, six auxiliary cohorts and three cavalry alae, over twenty thousand men, minus a few cohorts that had been left at the German tribes’ request to preserve Rome’s peace. Sneaky bastards did that to lull Varus into complacency, which worked; he’d even sent the legates and some of the tribunes back home to Rome for the winter. He thought everything was fine as he set out west along the military road that followed the River Lupia; it was called the Long Bridges on account of how many bridges it has. Nasty place; we nearly shared Varus’ fate when we tried to go home that way a few years later.’
‘We crossed what’s left of that fifty miles south of here,’ Paetus remarked. ‘How did they stray so far from their path?’
‘Arminius sent a false message saying that there was a rebellion up north of here. Varus trusted and liked him and therefore believed him — even though he had been warned that he was plotting against him — so he decided not to split his column and took everybody north, even the camp followers and slow baggage train, into this terrain of hills thick with trees and cut by deep ravines; fucking idiot! Varus allowed his lumbering, six- or seven-mile-long column to be led by German guides into a valley a few miles back, southeast of here, that was heaving with tribesmen hiding in the trees.’
‘Didn’t they have scouts out on the flanks?’ Vespasian asked, looking up the hill to his left through the oak, beech and birch trees and imagining how easy it would be to hide an army from view.
‘Yeah, according to the few lads who survived, they had lots of scouts; trouble was they were Arminius’ men and they accidentally missed seeing five thousand or so warriors on either side of the hills above them plus another ten thousand who had decided to come along and watch on the understanding that they would join in if it went well for Arminius. Anyway, Varus thought that it was natural to use Cherusci and Chatti auxiliaries as scouts; the tribes were loyal after all and it meant that he could have all his legionaries marching in nice neat ranks and files, eight abreast, all very lovely and military fashion, just how generals like it.’
‘But very slow.’
‘Exactly; and they kept on having to fell trees so that the formation wouldn’t break up. Also, it was pouring with rain and there was a howling wind blowing in from the west with a force that I’ve only ever seen in Germania; none of our lads could see or hear the savages until they felt their spears and slingshots crash into the centre of the column. The boys still had their pila tied to their pack-yokes; it was a fucking shambles from all accounts. Then the savages and our own auxiliaries came whooping and hollering down the hill and it all got very personal, if you take my meaning, and before long the column was cut in two.’
‘How did they make it here to die along this path?’ Sabinus asked, looking at the Nineteenth’s emblem and wondering where it had fallen.
‘Eventually they regained some semblance of order and Varus got half the lads to build a camp whilst the rest held the bastards off; they finally withdrew at nightfall and Varus allowed a few hours’ wet sleep before destroying all the carts and sneaking out of the camp a couple of hours before dawn. The Germans woke up to find the camp empty of legionaries but full of abandoned supplies; well, as you can imagine, they were in no mood to chase our boys until they’d had a good rummage through it all. Meanwhile Varus kept on trying to go northwest to come to Arminius’ aid, thinking that the attack was an attempt to stop him from getting to the source of the rebellion rather than Arminius himself; pompous idiot! The army’s never been in short supply of them.’